In about seven or eight minutes Top stopped in a glade surrounded with tall trees.The settlers gazed around them, but saw nothing, neither under the bushes nor among the trees.
"What is the matter, Top?" said Cyrus Harding.
Top barked louder, bounding about at the foot of a gigantic pine.All at once Pencroft shouted,--"Ho, splendid! capital!""What is it?" asked Spilett.
"We have been looking for a wreck at sea or on land!""Well?"
"Well; and here we've found one in the air!"And the sailor pointed to a great white rag, caught in the top of the pine, a fallen scrap of which the dog had brought to them.
"But that is not a wreck!" cried Gideon Spilett.
"I beg your pardon!" returned Pencroft.
"Why? is it--?"
"It is all that remains of our airy boat, of our balloon, which has been caught up aloft there, at the top of that tree!"Pencroft was not mistaken, and he gave vent to his feelings in a tremendous hurrah, adding,--"There is good cloth! There is what will furnish us with linen for years.
There is what will make us handkerchiefs and shirts! Ha, ha, Mr.Spilett, what do you say to an island where shirts grow on the trees?"It was certainly a lucky circumstance for the settlers in Lincoln Island that the balloon, after having made its last bound into the air, had fallen on the island and thus given them the opportunity of finding it again, whether they kept the case under its present form, or whether they wished to attempt another escape by it, or whether they usefully employed the several hundred yards of cotton, which was of fine quality.Pencroft's joy was therefore shared by all.
But it was necessary to bring down the remains of the balloon from the tree, to place it in security, and this was no slight task.Neb, Herbert, and the sailor, climbing to the summit of the tree, used all their skill to disengage the now reduced balloon.
The operation lasted two hours, and then not only the case, with its valve, its springs, its brasswork, lay on the ground, but the net, that is to say a considerable quantity of ropes and cordage, and the circle and the anchor.The case, except for the fracture, was in good condition, only the lower portion being torn.
It was a fortune which had fallen from the sky.
"All the same, captain," said the sailor, "if we ever decide to leave the island, it won't be in a balloon, will it? These airboats won't go where we want them to go, and we have had some experience in that way! Look here, we will build a craft of some twenty tons, and then we can make a main-sail, a foresail, and a jib out of that cloth.As to the rest of it, that will help to dress us.""We shall see, Pencroft," replied Cyrus Harding; "we shall see.""In the meantime, we must put it in a safe place," said Neb.
They certainly could not think of carrying this load of cloth, ropes, and cordage, to Granite House, for the weight of it was very considerable, and while waiting for a suitable vehicle in which to convey it, it was of importance that this treasure should not be left longer exposed to the mercies of the first storm.The settlers, uniting their efforts, managed to drag it as far as the shore, where they discovered a large rocky cavity, which owing to its position could not be visited either by the wind or rain.
